Verizon Wireless to Sell Customers' Data to Advertisers

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Verizon Wireless will now collect phone users' information,
including their GPS location and Web browsing history, and sell
the data to third parties unless customers opt out of the
tracking service.

Verizon Wireless' (VZW) updated
privacy policy permits the mobile giant to also track
customers' app usage, device type, calling features and amount of
phone use, as well as any search terms they type when browsing
the Web on a VZW mobile device, and demographic information
provided by other companies, such as gender and age.

The goal of logging this info and handing it over to other
companies, VZW writes, is to create business and marketing
reports. VZW gives the example that the data it mines and sells
to marketers, "could be combined with data provided by other
wireless carriers to create a report on the number of mobile
users who take a particular highway during rush hour."

Facebook sells customer data to users, and Google collects
location data for traffic purposes, but those services are free
to use. In contrast, Verizon Wireless customers are already
paying the U.S. cellular industry's highest rates, and now the
company will be making even more from each user.

This is alarming to Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor
for the security firm Sophos. "You should be concerned if you
value your privacy and feel your $80 contract should be enough
that your provider should not feel compelled to sell you to
someone for marketing purposes," he wrote in an email to
SecurityNewsDaily.

The tracked data, VZW said, will also be used to make mobile
advertisements more relevant to customers.

"When you use your wireless device, you often see ads on websites
and apps," VZW writes. "Using certain Consumer Information (such
as your Demographics, device type, and language preference) and
the postal address we have for you, we will determine whether you
fit within an audience an advertiser is trying to reach. This
means ads you see may be more relevant to you."

VZW stresses that the data it sells to third parties will be
anonymized, and that it will not share any data outside of the
company that identifies customers personally.

Again, Wisniewski sees this policy as severely flawed. "Opt-out
is never an appropriate policy for things related to privacy," he
told SecurityNewsDaily. "We can see how well the opt-out CAN-SPAM
act works or how confusing and difficult Facebook has made
'opting-out' of their
privacy infringing defaults."

He added, "Considering that it illegal for the library to
disclose what books you read, and the video store to sell/share
what videos you watch, why would it then be legal/ethical to
sell/share what websites I visit?"

Customers can opt out of being
tracked by going to their account on the Verizon
Wireless site. Mobile ads, however, will remain. "You will
receive mobile ads whether you participate or not, but under the
advertising program, ads may be more relevant to you," VZW said.